The practice of judicial tasks has seen significant improvements in light of the developments which the Emirate has been witnessing for the past years until the first printed judgments were released on September, 25 1965, which was 6 years before the Union date when RAK Court was named "RAK Sharia Court" and had a limit number of judges assigned by the Ruler. The court sessions consisted of one judge, and the judicial verdicts comprised of the judge's name "issuer of judicial verdict", court's name, name of parties, and the judicial verdict, contrary to what had been followed in the past of briefly writing the judgments, or perhaps issuing and executing the judgments without writing them down.
On March 3, 1971, the late Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi issued a law to establish RAK Court which then was the first civil court in Ras Al Khaimah beside the Sharia Court which existed a long time before. The law stipulated having a president to the judges under the name "Courts President" who is authorized to practice the authorities of any judge of RAK Courts' judges. Furthermore, he is responsible for the administrative supervision on the Courts as he is empowered to assign or dismiss Courts' employees excluding the judges – after the Ruler's approval -, in addition to the power of taking disciplinary actions against them.
Judiciary received great interest from the late Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, throughout his reign in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, as one of the most important pillars of governance and its solid foundation; his interest was demonstrated in many aspects that revealed his vision and his profound belief that justice is the basis of governance, and his striving and keenness on selecting who undertakes the task of judiciary and the need for judges to have a great deal of knowledge, honesty, integrity and impartiality is nothing but an demonstration of this interest.
Following those pillars, H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, may God protect him, continued developing the judicial machinery in the emirate, as he directed towards the need for modernization of judicial infrastructure, and made "providing a legislative structure and a legal system and modern judicial systems" a top priority in the vision of Ras Al Khaimah Government, which signaled a new dawn of comprehensive development, as the ruler of Ras Al Khaimah stressed on the judicial pattern of judiciary in terms of its independence and non-interference by any authority in the administration of justice; and surrounded the judicial members with legal safeguards to maintain their neutrality and impartiality, and established the principle of non-removal of judges, and established a judicial council specializes in all its affairs, in addition to safeguards put in place to achieve justice in the conduct of trials, and ensure the procedures accuracy, and grounds of judgments, and the need to register judgments and their groundings, and ensure the rights of litigants by dividing the litigation process to three levels.
The attention of H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi has not been limited to the institutional structure of the judiciary in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah in terms of its legal and administrative organization, but also extended to taking care of the men of judiciary and the servants of justice, as H.H. issued a decree to amend their salaries and allowances, until they became the highest salaries awarded in the emirate for H.H. believes that they are the corner stone in establishing the rules of justice. H.H also directed for them to be provided with the latest electronic and information technology tools, to help them carry out their duties to the fullest and complete them quickly, as well as their access to a tremendous amount of legal information provided by the most prestigious higher courts in the Arab world.
In the context of striving to give litigants in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah their undiminished full right, the culmination of the efforts in this regard was the establishment of the Court of Cassation under the law concerning the Court of Cassation of the year 2006 as the highest judicial body in the emirate, which is entrusted with the establishment of principles and rules that would unify the understanding of legal texts to achieve their purposes and objectives, as well as other important tasks stipulated in details by the law of its establishment.
The Court of Cassation in Ras Al Khaimah is considered the third Supreme Court in the state in terms of establishment after the Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, and the Court of Cassation in Dubai, and which has succeeded in a few years in establishing many of the legal principles many of those involved in judicial work are proud of.
The oldest printed ruling and the first ruling based on DNA
RAK Courts Department is one of the oldest courts that followed the changes in the surrounding scientific and technical environments, as the first printed court ruling was released in RAK Courts back then when it was called "RAK Sharia Court", and it was dated September 25, which was 6 years before the Union date. RAK Courts were also the forerunner since the nineties of the last century in the hiring of DNA experts in various types of cases, particularly the criminal ones, until the Court of Cassation in Ras Al Khaimah issued the first court ruling in a paternity suit based on a DNA test in 26 August 2012.
The time difference between the two legal judgments - 47 years - proves the nobility of the judiciary in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, and its keenness to keep up with the latest changes in the scientific and technical world.
The oldest printed ruling in Ras Al Khaimah was regarding a conflict after the defendants acted in some of the common suburbs in the area without a legitimate justification, upon which judge Abdulla bin Ali Suleiman compelled the defendants to pay the value of what they had acted in from the suburbs in favor of the plaintiff.
While the first court ruling in a paternity suit based on a DNA test in Ras Al Khaimah was issued by the Court of Cassation in Ras Al Khaimah, in the civil, commercial, and personal status department under the chairmanship of Judge Yahya Jalal Fadhl, and the membership of the two Judges: Mohammed Naji Derbala, and Hassan Yousef Alrogha, where the outcome of the DNA test was accepted after balancing the presented evidences as a scientific conclusive evidence that does not contradict the rules of Islamic law and the provisions of the Personal Status Law derived from it.